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Quick Start

Open Excel.

Enter these words into separate cells on the first row: "Latitude", "Longitude",
"Name", "Description", and "Icon".

On the rows that follow, enter the attributes of each point.

"Latitude" and "Longitude" are required. The other columns are optional.

"Name" is the label that appears next to each icon on Google Earth.

"Description" is the text that appears in the Google Earth pop-up balloon.
An Excel formula can be used to combine data from several
columns.

"Icon" designates the icon that is displayed for each point. An easy way to
get an icon is to enter a number from the table
below. If the Icon column is left blank or if it is missing, icon number 166
is displayed. You can also enter an icon's "www" web address. If you
don't want an icon, enter the word "none".

Save the worksheet.

Click the "Browse" button above and select the worksheet you just created.

Click the "View on Google Earth" button.

To Save The File

In the "Places" window of Google Earth, right-click the folder "Earth Point Excel
To KML".

GPS Track: use the following
columns: Latitude, Longitude, LineStringColor, Icon, IconColor, and IconHeading.
Enter "lime" or "yellow" into the LineStringColor column. For direction arrows,
enter "196" into Icon, "yellow" into IconColor, and "line-180" into IconHeading.
If you don't want an icon, enter "none" into the Icon column.
more...

A

B

C

D

E

F

1

Latitude

Longitude

LineStringColor

Icon

IconColor

IconHeading

2

43.6097

-116.2048

cyan

196

yellow

line -180

3

43.6095

-116.2047

cyan

196

yellow

line -180

4

43.6094

-116.2046

cyan

196

yellow

line -180

GPS track in a spreadsheet, csv, or txt file.

GPS track on Google Earth.

Time Slider: If you have
GPS tracks or other data that contains time information, you can view this information
sequentially using the time slider in Google Earth. Excel To Kml looks for
time information in columns labeled TimeWhen, TimeBegin, and TimeEnd. See
the specifications below.
Google Earth Blog
has more information about the time slider.

Guidelines

File name must end in ".xls", ".xlsx", ".xlsm", ".xlsb", ".csv", or ".txt"

The first row that contains the values "Latitude" and Longitude" or the value "Position"
is considered to be the heading row. All previous rows are ignored. All subsequent
rows are treated as data.

The columns listed below control the appearance of each
placemark. "Latitude" and "Longitude" are required. All others are optional. Any
column not listed is ignored.

Multiple worksheets are allowed in an Excel workbook. Each worksheet name will be
displayed as a separate folder in Google Earth "My Places".

Security

Excel To KML security is comparable to sending an email to a trusted colleague.
Your data is transmitted over the internet and saved as a file on the Earth Point
server. The data is immediately sent back to your PC in the form of a KML
file and the original file is removed from the Earth Point server.

Columns Used By Excel To KML

Latitude, Longitude, Name, Description, and Icon are all that are necessary for
a professional looking presentation. Advanced options allow you to elevate
the icon above the earth's surface, draw a path ("connect the dots"), and control
mouse-over effects. Excel To KML ignores any additional columns in your spreadsheet.

If expressed in decimal form, eastern longitudes are positive, western longitudes
are negative.

If blank or invalid, item is not displayed on Google Earth.

Basic Optional Columns

Column Heading

Default Value

Description

Name

None

The text displayed next to the icon on Google Earth.

If blank, no text is displayed.

Description

None

The text displayed in the Google Earth pop-up balloon.

An Excel formula can be used to combine text from several columns. For example,
to display data from columns D, E, and F, with each of D, E, and F on its own line,
and supposing we are on row 6, the Description column formula is

=D6 & "<br/>" & E6 & "<br/&gt" & F6

where <br/> is the html tag for a new line.

HTML tags are allowed. Note to HTML authors:

Except for specifying font color, the HTML "style" attribute is ignored by Google
Earth. Earlier formatting methods must be used, as illustrated in the sample data
ExcelToKmlDemo.zip.

If blank, no balloon is displayed.

Icon

Icon can be any of:
1) A integer between 1 to 279, or 301 to 529, which designates an icon selected
from either of the tables below; or
2) The URL of an icon stored on a web site; or
3) The path of a file on your hard drive or network drive, for example
C:/folder/file.jpg or
file:///C:folder/file.jpg
(note the three slashes, not two, after "file:"); or
4) the word "none".
If the file cannot be found, Google displays
.
If "none", no icon is displayed.
If blank,
is displayed.

If "True", "Yes", or "x": appends spreadsheet data to the Description text. Includes
all columns NOT used to format the Excel To Kml output. Also includes the "Name",
"Latitude", "Longitude", "Position", and "TownshipAndRange" columns. "Name" is used
as the Description title.

If "False", "No", or blank: does nothing.

If a list of column names, such as "Address, Price, City, Color, Region": these
columns (if they exist in the spreadsheet) are appended to the Description in the
order listed. If "Name" is included in the list, then the "Name" value forms the
Description title.

AppendLatLonToDescription

None

Valid values are "True", "Yes", "x", "False", "No", and blank. If true, appends
Latitude and Longitude information to the Description text. Useful for seeing the
translation of coordinates that are entered into the Position
column. The description text is displayed in the Google Earth pop-up balloon. The
description text is also displayed in the spreadsheet view on this web page.

The following example reports that "30UXC3542" is entered into the Position column,
that it is an MGRS coordinate for a 1-kilometer grid, and that the equivalent Lat/Lon
is 51.812518, -1.0416

MGRS KM:

30UXC3542

Lat, Lon:

51.812518, -1.0416

If blank, no text is appended to the Description text.

If the spreadsheet does not have a "Description" column, the text will nonetheless
be displayed in the Google Earth pop-up balloon. However, no text will be added
to the spreadsheet view on this web page.

Folder

blank

Organizes the data into folders and subfolders. When viewing the data in Google
Earth, the entire contents of a folder can be hidden or shown by clicking the folder
in the "My Places" window. Both forward-slashes and back-slashes can be used to
separate the folder levels.

Examples:
Country One
Country One/City One/Street One
Country One/City Two
Country Three/Office Four/Room Six

HideNameUntilMouseOver

False

Valid values are "True", "Yes", "x", "False", "No", and blank. If true, the icon
is displayed with no label, until mouse over, then the label is displayed. If False,
the label is always displayed. If there many rows in your data, is helpful to hide
the labels to reduce screen clutter.

If blank, Name is always displayed, regardless of mouse-over.

IconScale

1

A decimal number that increases or decreases the display size of the icon. Typical
values are in the range of .5 to 1. No matter how big or small an image actually
is, Google Earth displays it according to the scale. For example,

Scale=1

Scale=.7

Scale=1.5

If blank, scale is 1.

IconAltitude

0

Height of icon above the ground (default) or sea level (optional), in meters.

If blank, height is 0.

See IconAltitudeMode, just below.

IconAltitudeMode

Relative

If blank, "Relative", "AGL", or "AboveGroundLevel", the altitude of the icon is
measured from ground level.

If "Absolute", "MSL", or "MeanSeaLevel", the altitude of the icon measured from
sea level.

IconLineColor
IconLineColour

Yellow

If the icon is elevated above the ground (see IconAltitude) this is the color
of the line drawn from ground up to the icon.

See IconColor for details.

If "none", the line is not displayed.
If blank, color is yellow.

IconColor
IconColour

None

Fills an icon with a color.
Can be any of
1) an html named
color,
2) an HTML hexadecimal color code,
3) a Hue value,
4) the word "none".

Bright colors show up best on Google Earth.

Bright named colors:

Red

DarkOrange

Yellow

Chartreuse

Lime

SpringGreen

Cyan

DodgerBlue

Blue

DarkViolet

Magenta

DeepPink

Black

Gray

Silver

White

Same bright colors as hexadecimal values:

FF0000

FF8000

FFFF00

80FF00

00FF00

00FF80

00FFFF

0080FF

0000FF

8000FF

FF00FF

FF0080

000000

808080

C0C0C0

FFFFFF

Same bright colors as Hue values:

0

30

60

90

120

150

180

210

240

270

300

330

No gray colors if Hue is specified.

All Hue values from 0 to 360:

If blank or "none", the icon displays its default colors (see icon table below at the bottom of the
page).

IconHeading

None

Rotates an icon.
Can be a number, the word "line" or the word "line" plus or minus a number.
A positive number rotates the icon to the right by the number of degrees specified
by the number.
A negative number rotates the icon to the left.
The word "line" rotates the icon to face in the direction of travel.
The word "line" plus or minus a number rotates the icon to face the direction of
travel, then rotates it some more as specified by the number.

If blank, or 0, the icon is not rotated.

LabelColor
LabelColour

White

Color of the label that is displayed next to the ion on Google Earth.

See IconColor for details.

If "none", the label is not displayed. If blank, the label is white.

LabelScale

1

Size of the label that is displayed next to the ion on Google Earth. Typical values
are in the range of .8 to 2.

If blank, the scale is 1.

LineStringColor
LineStringColour

None

"Connect the dots" - draws a line from this point to the next.

See IconColor above for specification details.

If "none" or blank, the line is not displayed.
Except that if LineStringColor is blank and any of LineStringWidth, LineStringAltitude, or LineStringAltitudeMode
are specified, then the color will be yellow.

LineStringWidth

2

Width of the line drawn from one point to the next. A decimal number, typically
in the range of 1 to 3.

If 0, the line is not displayed.
If blank, width is 2.

LineStringAltitude

0

The altitude, in meters above the ground, of this end of the LineString.

If blank, altitude is 0.

LineStringAltitudeMode

Relative

If blank, "Relative", "AGL", or "AboveGroundLevel", the altitude of the line is
measured from ground level.

If "Absolute", "MSL", or "MeanSeaLevel", the altitude of the line measured from
sea level.

LookAtHeading

0

If an icon is double-clicked in Google Earth, or its label in the Places window, Google Earth will spin
so that the viewer is looking in this direction.

LookAtRange

1000 meters from the icon

If an icon is double-clicked in Google Earth, or its label in the Places window, Google Earth will move
so that the viewer this far from the icon (slant range distance, in meters).

LookAtTilt

0

If an icon is double-clicked in Google Earth, or its label in the Places window, Google Earth will tilt
so that the viewer is looking at the icon at this angle.
If 0, then looking straight down. If 90, then looking straight across.

The following positions refer to 39° 18' 40.58" N 102° 17' 30.47" W
which is near Burlington, Colorado, USA.

In the following table, "d" is used to mark degree digits, "m" for minutes, and
"s" for seconds. For lat/lon, the letters "N, S, E, and W can come before or after
the coordinates. So long as the coordinate can be understood, punctuation, spaces,
and °'" are optional. Acceptable formats include:

Dec Degs

39.3112710°,-102.2917960°
dd.dddddd ddd.dddddd

Dec Degs Micro

39.3112710N,102.2917960W
dd.dddddd ddd.dddddd

Dec Mins

39°18.67626', -102°17.50776'
ddmm.mmmm dddmm.mmmm

Dec Mins

3918.67626N10217.50776W
ddmm.mmmm dddmm.mmmm

Deg Min Secs

39°18'40.5756", -102°17'30.4656"
dd mm ss.sss dd mm ss.sss

Dec Mins Secs

391840.5756N, 1021730.4656W
ddmmss.sss dddmmss.sss

UTM

13S 733494mE 4354817mN

MGRS, USNG

13SGD3349454817

State Plane

United States State Plane coordinates.
Easting and Northing (X and Y) can be in Meters, US Survey Feet, or International
Feet, where
1 US survey foot = 1200/3937 meters, and
1 international foot = 0.3048 meters

X, Y, East, and North
By default, the X coordinate, or Easting is specified first and the Y coordinate,
or Northing is specified second. However, the order can be reversed if coordinates
are explicitly labeled. Example:

0502 3907544.126ftUS 1554289.373ftUS

Normal specification - Zone 1102 followed by Easting and Northing in US Survey Feet

Note that UTM position "13S" is in the Northern hemisphere. Earth Point uses
the convention that the UTM Band letters C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, M are in the
southern hemisphere and N, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, X are in the northern hemisphere.
UPS letters A, B, Y, Z are also supported.

Georef is specified to .01 minutes, which is a lower resolution than the other systems.
Thus, Georef cannot plot the above location exactly. The next two points are the
same, but they are about 570 meters southeast of the points above.

deg min

39°18.67', -102°17.51'
dd mm.mm ddd mm.mm

Georef

FJCK42491867

UPS is supported. This point is by the North Pole.

Deg Min Secs

84°17'14.0363"N, 042°14'52.4473E"
dd mm ss.ssss ddd mm ss.ssss

UPS

Z2426773E1530125N

MGRS

ZGC2677330125

The equivalent Lat/Lon coordinates can be displayed by:

Add an AppendLatLonToDescription
column to the spreadsheet. If the spreadsheet also has a "Description" column, then
the Lat/Lon coordinates will be added to the description.

Click the "View File on Web Page, Check for errors" button above. Mouse-over the
Position column entries. The Lat/Lon coordinates are displayed.

For each row of the spreadsheet:
Exactly one of Latitude and Longitude, Position, TownshipAndRange, or TexasAbstract
must be filled in. The others must be blank. If all are blank, or if more than one
is filled in, then the row is in error and will not be mapped.

TownshipAndRange

None

Western United States only, in a number of formats. Used in place of Latitude and
Longitude or Position.

If there is no possibility of duplication, the state or the meridian can be dropped.
In the above examples, both
SENW 35 44W 8S 6th and
SENW 35 44W 8S CO are both allowed.

However, some states have more that one meridian, for example California has three.
CA 14N 6E could be in any of the Humboldt, Mount Diablo, or San Bernardino meridians.
Yet, Humboldt 14N 6E is allowed, as there is no chance of duplication.

Likewise, a single meridian can cross into more than one state, causing duplication
along the border. For example,
6th 12N 84W could be in either Colorado or Montana. However, Colorado 12N 84 West
and Montana 12N 84W are permitted as there is no possibility of duplication.

Other formats
USGS Meridian Code may be used in place of the meridian name
For example, California Humboldt 14N 6E would be CA 15 14N 6E

Add an AppendLatLonToDescription
column to the spreadsheet. If the spreadsheet also has a "Description" column, then
the Lat/Lon coordinates will be added to the description.

Click the "View File on Web Page, Check for errors" button above. Mouse-over the
Position column entries. The Lat/Lon coordinates are displayed.

For each row of the spreadsheet:
Exactly one of Latitude and Longitude, Position, TownshipAndRange, or TexasAbstract
must be filled in. The others must be blank. If all are blank, or if more than one
is filled in, then the row is in error and will not be mapped.

Texas Abstract

None

State of Texas, United States only, in a number of formats. Used in place of Latitude
and Longitude or Position.

Example, abstract 1025 in Anderson county:
The FIPS code for Anderson county is 001, so the complete abstract number is 0011025.
The county name can be used in place of the FIPS code, as in Anderson 1025. The
space between the county name or code and abstract number is optional.

Note that Excel removes leading zeros from numeric values. If 0011025 is entered
into a cell, the value stored is 11025. Unfortunately, 11025 is not the number of
any Texas Abstract. There are several ways to preserve the leading zeros.
1) Enter the value as a formula, ="0011025"
2) Precede the numeric value with a single quote, '0011025
3) Use the Excel toolbar to format the cell as "text".

Add an AppendLatLonToDescription
column to the spreadsheet. If the spreadsheet also has a "Description" column, then
the Lat/Lon coordinates will be added to the description.

Click the "View File on Web Page, Check for errors" button above. Mouse-over the
Position column entries. The Lat/Lon coordinates are displayed.

For each row of the spreadsheet:
Exactly one of Latitude and Longitude, Position, TownshipAndRange, or TexasAbstract
must be filled in. The others must be blank. If all are blank, or if more than one
is filled in, then the row is in error and will not be mapped.

Snippet

None

A short text description that is displayed under the Name in the "My Places" section
of Google Earth.

If blank, no text is displayed.

TimeWhen

None

TimeWhen identifies a location that is to be displayed at a single moment in time.

If blank or invalid the value is ignored.

If you have GPS tracks or other data that contains time information, you can view
this information sequentially using the time slider in Google Earth.
Google Earth Blog
has more information about the time slider.

Eras are supported. AD (Anno Domini), BC (Before Christ), CE (Common Era), and BCE
(Before Common Era), +, and - can appear before or after the date, or the era can
be entered separately into the TimeWhenEra column.

Generally speaking, the TimeWhenEra column is the easiest way to add an era. The
reason is that if era is entered together with the date in the TimeWhen column,
the date formatting will likely be lost, causing the Excel To Kml utility to report
an invalid value.
However, if the era is to appear together with the date in the TimeWhen column,
as might be the case if the data is imported into Excel from another source, then
the following are a few valid examples:
8/17/07 13:09:26 BC
B.C.E. 8/17/07 13:09:26
AD 8/17/07 13:09:26

It is also possible to use a formula in the TimeWhen column to combine date and
era.

...

C

D

E

1

...

Date

Era

TimeWhen

2

...

2007-08-17

BC

=Text(C2, "yyyy-mm-dd") & D2

3

...

Aug 17, 2007

B.C.E.

=Text(E3, "yyyy-mm-dd") & D3

4

...

8/17/07

-

=Text(E4, "yyyy-mm-dd") & D4

The result in column E would be
2007-08-17 BC
2007-08-17 B.C.E.
2007-08-17 - (minus sign)

Indicates that the location is displayed for a span of time starting at TimeBegin.
TimeBegin is often paired with TimeEnd. However, if TimeBegin is specified, but
TimeEnd is missing, the location is displayed from TimeBegin forever after.

Indicates that the location is displayed for a span of time ending at TimeEnd. TimeEnd
is often paired with TimeBegin. However, if TimeEnd is specified, but TimeBegin
is missing, the location is displayed form the beginning of time until TimeEnd.

Other columns are allowed in the file however they are not used by Excel To KML.

Google Earth Icons

These icons can be displayed on Google Earth by entering the icon number into the
"Icon" column of the spreadsheet. Move your mouse over each icon to see what
the mouse-over effect will look like on Google Earth. If you want to give the icons a different color,
add an "IconColor" column to your spreadsheet.